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Posts Made By: Jeff Young

November 2, 2005 05:20 PM Forum: Home Observatories

Raising a Cylindrical Observatory

Posted By Jeff Young
We're nearing time for plastering, so I'm going to need a different solution for temporary weathering. I'm going to put together a simple peaked roof with scrap lumber and OSB, and then cover it with the same tarp (but it will at least be up out of the plasterers way).

But I'd also like to get the inside painted long before the scope goes in so that the paint has plenty of time to dry/outgas. Since the floor is too close to the temporary roof to install it with the roof on, the decision was made to remove the tarp, put in the floor, and then add the temporary roof.

Here are the scrap-lumber trusses for the temporary roof.

November 8, 2005 09:04 AM Forum: Eyepieces

Re: Safety undercuts

Posted By Jeff Young
Tony Leung said:
...

Maybe they should make undercut edges with a smooth angle gradient versus the hard right angle cuts which are not so compression friendly...

Like this?

November 9, 2005 05:18 PM Forum: Home Observatories

Raising a Cylindrical Observatory

Posted By Jeff Young
Well, it's a bit unsightly, but it will allow me to plaster the outside, and my dome should be shipping in the next week or so.

It's been raining cats and dogs here. There are literally puddles of standing water in the field (and it's not like the field is in a low-lying depression). I'm trying to paint the inside, but with all the humidity, I can't get it to completely dry out (and I don't want to seal in the moisture with the paint). I put a heater out there tonight; we'll see what tomorrow brings. (ed. -- actually, I forgot to post this last week -- "tomorrow" has come and gone, and another day as well before it dried out)

November 10, 2005 03:04 PM Forum: Home Observatories

Raising a Cylindrical Observatory

Posted By Jeff Young
I spray-painted the ground floor walls and ceiling a light blue. This was a grueling task from which I emerged blue myself. The floor is also entirely blue, even though I didn't paint any of it!

I'm not terribly happy with the color, but it's not going to change now. :S

You can also make out in both pictures the 3/8" x 3" plywood rail rebated into the studs to keep them from twisting.

November 11, 2005 09:42 PM Forum: Home Observatories

Raising a Cylindrical Observatory

Posted By Jeff Young
(OK, perhaps this whole "jam jar" thing has gone too far. I promise to cease and desist. Really.)

Anyway, a bit of "rib-lath" went up over the sarking felt. This is your basic expanded metal but with angled ribs that hold it out from the substrate about 1/4" so that the plaster can get a good "key" behind the metal. It's a pain in the rear to put on though -- what I thought was a half-day job took 2 of us a day and a half, and we didn't even get the vestibule covered. sad

You can also see one of the 3/4" plastic pipes around the mid-section. There is one more at the top that's pretty hard to see, and one more still to go on at the bottom. These will act as "grounds" enabling the plasterers to screed the plaster to get a nice, even curve around the cylinder. After screeding, the plastic pipes will come off, and the holes they leave will be filled in by hand.

The plasterers will be out next Tuesday or Wednesday (weather permitting).

November 14, 2005 08:54 PM Forum: Home Observatories

Raising a Cylindrical Observatory

Posted By Jeff Young
Got the door hung, and the expanded-metal on the vestibule. Those corner-beads are awful hard to get straight....

November 16, 2005 09:53 PM Forum: Home Observatories

Raising a Cylindrical Observatory

Posted By Jeff Young
Scratch coat going on. This is about 3/8" to 1/2" thick and fairly soupy. One of the reasons they like doing 2-coat work is that this background layer will provide "suction" for the finish coat, allowing it to go on soupy as well, but dry out fairly quickly so they can put a finish on it.

These pictures are pretty poor as it's starting to get dark. This far north, that happens right after lunch (OK, it's not quite that bad.)

November 17, 2005 08:45 PM Forum: Home Observatories

Walkway to the Heavens

Posted By Jeff Young
Hey! Is that my blue paint?

wink

November 17, 2005 11:36 PM Forum: Home Observatories

Raising a Cylindrical Observatory

Posted By Jeff Young
Well, I guess BAX Global got tired of looking at it, so they sent it up a day early. Comes in a BIG crate: roughly 7' x 6' x 4'. The driver kept saying the waybill said it weighed 350, so how bad could it be? (Well, that's 350 _kilos_, so it could be pretty dang heavy.)

We did manage to get it off the truck though, and then broke the crate apart in the driveway and carried all the pieces inside.

There's been a slight change of plans: all the timber I used to level the floor in the old kitchen the last time around is now part of the temporary roof -- so the pre-assembly area will be the breakfast room instead (which has a flat floor. (It happens to be heated as well. smile )

Only problem is, since the dining room is still full of all the furniture from the library, we need the breakfast room for Thanksgiving dinner. So we're going to have to be quick about pre-assembly....

November 20, 2005 03:02 PM Forum: Home Observatories

Raising a Cylindrical Observatory

Posted By Jeff Young
The observatory was finish-coated yesterday, and lined out (to look like cut stone). There's a frost warning tonight, so I had to spend a couple of hours in the dark rigging up a makeshift "tent" from ladders, dust sheets, and plastic. (Similar to dew, for a ground frost, you just have to protect the plaster from too much open exposure to the sky.)

Turns out, it's a good thing I went to all that work. We got quite a bit of frost. This picture's from about 9am in the morning.

(Edited: The conditions did produce some rather good seeing. I had the 8" LX200GPS out last night and got some really nice views of Mars. All my favorite globs were too low, M81 and M82 were a bit washed out by the moon, and Orion was still behind a tree, so I stuck with the red planet.)

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